As this year draws to an end, let me make a toast to the miracle that is our body.
How amazing is it that day after day, year after year it continues to function, thereby, allowing us all to be part of and witness to the beauty that is this world.
I found this glass of holiday “punch” in the refrigerator this morning; forgot that I had placed it there Christmas night before going to bed. Looking at it now, as the sun’s golden rays refract through the peachy red liquid, it reminds me of what I wrote ten days ago when I quoted Shakespeare’s line “… and good in everything”.
In a gesture of holding up the glass to the sky, I am not so much toasting the elixir within the glass as I am toasting the wondrous miracle of life that this liquid symbolises to me.
You see, after falling to sleep on Christmas night, at 2:30 in the morning I was in an ambulance starting out on a two hour ride from Roaring Beach to the public hospital in Hobart. I hadn’t intended to go at such an ungodly hour, but I awoke to such severe pain that I had no choice but to telephone triple zero and ask for help. Within twenty minutes the ambulance arrived; a credit to the local volunteers, especially being Christmas night.
When I went to bed there was not a hint of pain, only that I had been peeing blood for the previous four hours (hence the glass full in the refrigerator to take to the doctors).
In the end, I simply had passed a kidney stone. Considering I fully expected to be dead, this was great news to hear from the doctor.
Today I will walk into the new year with a whole new awareness and appreciation of the mysterious workings of the body and how it heals itself.
As I raise the glass to the sky, I won’t drink to this particular toast of honouring our bodies, but I’m certain the lemon tree will benefit.
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